Percy didn't know why Monday's activity made him recoil, left him tongue-tied before he ever even opened his mouth. It was, like most of them, pretty simple in concept, but made his chest tighten with an odd sort of panic.

Why did the idea of talking about what he needed scare him worse than Atlas did?

As usual, his biggest comfort was the fact that everyone else looked equally uncomfortable, if not more so. Cassia's patient expression was as much a frustration as it was a refuge. She walked around the circle they'd formed, passing down a labeled stress ball to each kid. Most of them had tiny chunks dug out of them, maybe from nails scraping at the material.

Percy was the last to receive his ball, and stared down at it as Cassia went to her laptop. He couldn't tell what it said, and the cartoon face drawn on it didn't help.

Owhermevld. Great. What did Percy need when he felt owhermevld?

"Everyone ready?" Cassia asked. There was a general grumble of assent in return, and she pressed play. A pop song danced from the speakers.

Grudgingly, Percy tossed his ball to the right and caught the one from his left, then passed that one on too. He couldn't decide whether to move as fast as possible or as slow. He wasn't really sure there were any good options in the balls, so what did it really matter? He was gonna get one no matter what.

The music stopped, and Percy gingerly looked down. Aairfd. The comically scared face above the word made it easy enough to decipher.

"Jet, can you go first?" Cassia asked. Jet groaned quietly, but he looked down at his ball.

"When I'm angry I need..." He scowled. "I don't know. To stop being angry?"

"What helps you stop being angry?" Cassia elaborated. Jet let out a put-upon sigh, but he did think about it.

"People getting out of my space, I guess?" he said warily. "Uh. And if they stop yelling. Don't touch me. And... Going for a run, I guess."

"Excellently done, Jet," Cassia praised. "Elliot, can you go next?"

Elliot was to Jet's right, which made Percy... fifth, if they kept going in that direction. He scowled down at his ball, but listened anyway.

Elliot needed a distraction when he was sad, and he especially liked video games and YouTube videos for that. Amna needed to spend time with people when she was lonely, and preferred cooperative activities like putting something together. Leilani needed activity when she was numb, and liked swimming best but would also accept washing dishes or babysitting.

"Percy next," Cassia said. "Percy, do you need help with your ball?"

"Nah, it's got a scared face on it," he said, holding it up to demonstrate. A couple of the others snickered, and he smiled briefly. "Uh, when I'm scared I need..." He suppressed his reflexive response, which was 'to get over it.' "Um, touch helps, like, holding my hand or something. And a plan. It's easier to get over it if I know what I have to do, I guess."

Oops, he said it anyway. But Cassia smiled at him.

"Well done," she said, and moved on.

It got easier after the first round, even if Percy still didn't like it; it took a lot of thought, and there was always an awkward pause in the middle of his sentence as he poked at his thoughts and waited for a response. He needed to talk about friends and family when he's depressed. To be touched and listened to when he was angry. Contact and a plan, again, when he was overwhelmed.

Oddly, the one that finally got him stuck was 'embarrassed,' with a wide-eyed, blushing face on the side of the ball. Didn't at all cover it, in Percy's opinion, but he could recognize the depiction when he saw it.

"I don't know," he admitted at last.

"Does it not bother you to be embarrassed?" Cassia asked. "That's okay too."

"I fucking hate being embarrassed," Percy snapped, with more venom than he'd meant to. He shook himself, growling irritably. "Sorry. I should be used to it, considering how often it happens, but..."

Cassia made a sound of realization. "Do you have a history with being maliciously humiliated?"

"...Yeah," Percy muttered, pushing back self-consciously without looking at anyone.

"Then it makes perfect sense for you to be sensitive to it," Cassia reassured him. "Did you not like any of the methods the others use?"

Percy shook his head. Jet liked to bite back, Elliot preferred solidarity and verbal support, Leilani argued, and Kieran retreated, but none of those really worked for Percy. And he'd tried them. Extensively.

"Does anyone have suggestions for Percy?" Cassia asked the room.

Most of them did, from reasoning his way out of it to distraction to punching something, but none of them were especially convincing, and Percy shook his head to each one.

"You could ask to be comforted," Amna suggested. "You hate it 'cause it really hurts, right? A good friend wouldn't hurt you for a laugh, not on purpose."

"I shouldn't need that," Percy argued, shoving his hands in his lap. "It's not supposed to be a big deal."

"Cassia said 'shouldn't' doesn't matter during this exercise," Kieran said.

Percy stared down at the ball and its stupid blushing face.

"...Yeah, okay," he admitted at last. "That would probably work."

"It's a silly activity," Raine smiled, "but I haven't met a teenager yet that doesn't like it."

Percy turned the wrapped candy over in his hand. "Um."

He and Raine were walking around as usual, passing over the blacktop and toward the sports field. Both of them had a plastic baggie of wrapped chocolates.

"I don't get it," Percy admitted.

"It's to practice reciprocity," Raine explained, beckoning for a candy. Percy handed it over easily, though he wrinkled his nose at her words. "Give and take. Ideally, it will help you get used to the idea of accepting anything you're willing to give. Getting more comfortable with that will make it easier for you to accept and ask for help."

She held out a candy. The fact that he didn't want to take it, even knowing damn well what the exercise was, probably meant that she was right, again.

He accepted it, heart skipping a beat in his discomfort, and unwrapped it, popping it into his mouth as he thought about it. He chewed, swallowed, and said, "As long as I get candy, I guess."

Raine chuckled. "Yes, that does seem to be the way into a teenager's heart." Percy held out a candy, and she took it but didn't eat yet. "Percy, can you tell me why you don't want your friends to help you?"

"Bribery," Percy accused, but for obvious reasons, he let it slide. "I don't want to bother them. They've usually got their own stuff going on. Like, everyone at camp? Their lives are really hard. They don't need me distracting them."

"So is yours," Raine pointed out. Percy scowled but didn't deny it. She offered Percy a candy, and he accepted it. "What do you think they would say if you asked them? Annabeth, for example. If you told her you didn't ask her for help because you didn't want to bother her, what would she do?"

"She'd call me an idiot," Percy admitted grudgingly, "and probably find a way to help with or without me explaining what's wrong."

"Why would she do that?" Raine prompted. Percy offered her a candy as a distraction, but she accepted it without breaking eye contact.

"...That's what we do," Percy said at last, softer than he'd meant. "We help each other." He rolled his shoulders, trying to think about it. "It's... we've been friends almost as long as I've been at camp, we did our first quest together. That was hard, you know? Three twelve-year-olds hitchhiking across the country without any adult supervision or anything, getting ambushed by monsters every mile or so. I don't want her to be alone." Pause. "I guess she feels the same way."

"I'm sure she does," Raine said. "How do you think she'd respond if you asked her for help with something really small? Homework, or cleaning your room."

Percy only had to think about it for a moment.

"She wouldn't even hesitate," he said. "She'd tease me, but she'd do it. Only time she wouldn't is if we were competing against each other." He smiled a little. "She's really competitive. But even then we team up as much as we can." Hey, Raine hadn't given him a candy yet. He glanced down at her bag, and she smiled and held one out as if in reward. He smiled sheepishly.

"And if you asked her for help with something big?" Raine prompted. "Another quest, perhaps."

Percy swallowed hard. "She wouldn't hesitate," he repeated. "I mean- she wouldn't even wait for me to ask. The only quest I've gone on without her was when she was missing, and I was going after her." Without waiting for Raine to ask, he added, "She'd do the same for me."

Gods, Percy was going to cry. He really, really loved Annabeth.

"Let's try with someone else," Raine said. "Do you have any friends who you don't think would want to help you?"

"Clarisse," Percy said immediately.

"What would Clarisse do if you asked her to help you clean your room?" Raine asked. Percy snorted, offering Raine a candy.

"She'd laugh at me," he said, oddly fond. "Probably wouldn't even bother answering."

"Clarisse would say no, then," Raine said. "Do you think she would be annoyed with you for asking?"

"...No." Percy didn't know how to feel about that realization.

"Do you have any friends that you think would be annoyed?" Raine offered him a candy as a consolation prize. He took it, and sucked on it as he tried to think.

"No," he admitted. "Not a single one."

"Then why don't you want to ask?" Raine asked him.

I don't want to bother them was on the tip of Percy's tongue, and he had to bite it back, annoyed with himself. Apparently that was wrong, again. "I don't know."

"We have another hour and a half for you to think," Raine said, and held out another candy even though he hadn't given her one back yet. Percy hesitated, irrationally worried that she was trying to trick him, then accepted it anyway. He waited for her to scold him, but she didn't.

"I'm a hard friend to have as it is," he said at last. "I mean- I'm stupid, I attract monsters like a flare gun, I have massive anger issues and all the gods hate me-"

"Percy," Raine said, firm but not sharp. Percy shut his mouth and crossed his arms, and Raine softened her voice. "At some point, we'll have to work out how to stop those spirals you fall into. Ranting about your flaws only does you harm."

Percy swallowed hard.

"Then I don't know what to say," he snapped without meaning to.

"Your flaws are no worse than anyone else's," Raine said. "And you clearly know that your friends love you. What do you think you're doing that is so unforgiveable that you don't deserve help?"

Put like that, it was easy for Percy to answer. "I put them in danger."

"You live a dangerous life," Raine said gently. "So do they. You just told me about going on a quest to save Annabeth. Didn't that put you in danger?"

That's different, Percy wanted to say. But it wasn't, really. Again.

"That's different," he said anyway. Oops.

"How so?" Raine asked.

"That happened to her," Percy argued, defensive despite himself. She held out a third chocolate, and he grimaced, fished three out of his own bag, and traded all three for the one. Raine smiled at him. "And I'm... I don't want to happen to her, you know?"

"You wouldn't," Raine said, with the calm conviction that made everything she said easy to believe. "Because you are not the danger, Percy. It's happening to you too."

Percy wanted to argue, but he couldn't find a big enough gap. "It's not fair though. A lot more happens to me than to her. It's, I dunno, uneven."

"That doesn't matter," Raine said firmly. "Friendship isn't a scale. You don't have to make sure everything comes out perfectly balanced, and being in more danger doesn't mean you have any less right to ask for the things any friend might ask of another."

Percy stared at the ground. "This is hard."

"I know," Raine said. "But you're doing great."

"Today is mainly going to be a lesson," Cassia explained, cross-legged on one side of the room, "since it's information you all need, but the application is extremely personal." A few of them grumbled, and Cassia smiled ruefully. "I know, I know – we won't have too many of these, I promise. But today I'd like to talk about how trauma can damage your self-esteem."

"I never understood that," Amna admitted, leaning back on the wall. "Bad things happened to me, so I feel bad about myself? It doesn't make sense."

"It takes some unraveling," Cassia acknowledged. "The most important thing you need to understand is that self-esteem comes from your confidence in yourself, and specifically, in your ability to succeed. Trauma damages that confidence by making you doubt your ability to keep yourself safe, which reduces your sense of control. And most of the time, you'll believe that if you were smarter, or faster, or stronger, you would have been able to avoid the traumatic event. But what do we know about traumatic events?"

"They're not our fault," most of the other patients chorused; it was clearly a well-practiced line.

Cassia smiled at them. "Exactly. Can anyone name some misconceptions about yourself that you might acquire from trauma? Alfie?"

"I can't trust what my eyes are telling me?" Alfie suggested, which made Percy wince in sympathy. Cassia nodded to him, and then gestured to Kieran.

Kieran shrugged. "I'm not attentive enough to notice danger when it gets close?"

"I'm not strong enough to defend myself," Leilani offered.

"I can't be trusted to look after my friends," Percy said, surprising himself.

"I make people want to hurt me," Jet added, leaning back on a shelf.

"You all seem to get the idea," Cassia said gently. "And what all of these have in common is that they are not true. Sometimes, things happen that are entirely out of our control, and that's a very scary thing to realize. But it's important to accept it, because more than anything, you need to know that your trauma is not your fault."

"But what if it is?" Elliot protested, tapping his fingers together anxiously.

"There are degrees of culpability, Elliot," Cassia said, and stood up to cross over to the rarely-used blackboard on one side of the classroom. "Let me explain. Would anyone like to volunteer an event that we can break down? It can be something we've discussed before."

Glancing around, Percy found nearly everyone avoiding Cassia's eyes and fidgeting with their clothes or a toy, so reluctantly, he raised his hand.

"Thank you, Percy," Cassia said gratefully. Percy shrugged.

"The thing where I got sent to the principal's office," he offered, "after the teacher called me illiterate."

Cassia nodded. "Can anyone list the people that could be considered at fault in this scenario?" she asked. "Alfie?"

Alfie put his hand down. "The teacher and his abuser," he said without hesitation. Percy wrinkled his nose.

"Smelly Gabe wasn't even there," he pointed out. Jet snorted, and Leilani muffled a giggle. It took Percy a minute to understand, but then he grinned. Yeah, he was still pretty proud of the nickname.

"If he hadn't been hurting you, you wouldn't have protected your face at the first sign of movement," Alfie countered. "And then you wouldn't have gone to the principal's office."

Percy shrugged. "I mean, technically, I guess. But I could have also just not done that." Even better, he could've spelled 'classroom' and avoided the whole thing.

"Thank you, Alfie," Cassia said, and wrote teacher, stepfather, and Percy on the board. "That gives us three participants. If we made the blame into a pie chart, how do you all think it would break down?"

Ten minutes of intent discussion later, the results were in.

Teacher: 60%

Stepfather: 35%

Percy: 5%

Percy stared at the board, accidentally tuning out the rest of the session for a while, thinking about guilt and responsibility.

"Hey," Percy said, the next day. "Can I pick the topic today?"

"Of course," Raine said immediately, actually looking pleased at the interference. "You can pick any day, if you have something in mind."

"Even if I don't really know what I want to say?" Percy prodded.

"I'll help you with that the best that I can," Raine assured him.

Percy nodded slowly. "I'm really, really dumb," he said at last, stuffing his hands into his pockets. "And everyone makes a lot of jokes about it, and it makes me feel like shit."

"Ah," Raine said softly. "I see why you're not sure where to start."

Raine was quiet for a minute, and Percy found himself grateful for the brief reprieve.

"Why do you think you're unintelligent?" Raine asked at last. Percy gave her a blank look.

"Because I'm garbage at school, and I do a lot of dumb things without thinking first, and I have a hard time understanding stuff," he said flatly. "And also because everyone says so."

Oh- that last sentence wasn't supposed to make his voice strain like that.

"Can you tell me why you struggle with school?" Raine pressed. Percy gave her a resentful look. "Humor me, please."

"Because I'm dyslexic and ADHD and none of my teachers have ever had the patience to even try to deal with me," Percy said testily. "What about it?"

"So it's not because you're unintelligent," Raine said. "You struggle with school because you have learning disabilities that your schools have always failed to account for."

Percy blinked, startled. "Oh... I guess. But being dumb doesn't help."

"Can you tell me some of the things you've had trouble understanding?" Raine prompted. Percy frowned, and they passed a few more minutes in silence while Percy tried to form a response.

"I dunno," he mumbled at last, uncomfortable. "I didn't understand how therapy was supposed to work until you explained it. I was really, really slow when Annabeth and Chiron and everyone was trying to introduce me to Camp Half-Blood. I couldn't even figure out why Rachel and Annabeth hated each other when they were fighting over me."

"Percy, no one instinctively understands everything that hasn't been explained to them," Raine said gently. "When you struggle to understand something because no one explained it, that's not your fault, and it doesn't reflect on your intelligence. It just means no one has explained it to you." She gave him a minute to sit with that, and then continued, "It's wonderful if you can work something out on your own, but that's simply... a bonus. Your self-worth shouldn't hinge on your ability to be exceptional all the time."

"Oh," Percy mumble, slouching. "Sorry."

"You've no reason to apologize," Raine said. "Can you do something for me?"

"Mm?"

"Try to get out of the habit of referring to yourself as stupid. When you can, rephrase it, even if you don't feel it's necessary." Percy squinted at her, and Raine clarified, "Instead of I'm too stupid to learn this, you can say I don't understand, can someone explain it to me?"

"Oh," Percy repeated. "You think that'll help?"

Raine smiled at him. "You would be surprised how helpful it is to shake off bad habits. The less often you refer to yourself as stupid, the less reflexive the thought will become. As it stands, a part of the reason you're so quick to blame your intelligence is because you're used to blaming your intelligence."

"Okay, but other people call me stupid all the time too," Percy pointed out. "Even my friends."

"Consider asking them to stop," Raine said. "It's clearly doing you quite a bit of harm."

"...I already asked a couple of my friends," Percy admitted quietly. "I don't know if they will, though. It's one of their favorite jokes."

"You'll have to wait and see," Raine said gently. "Can you tell me why it upsets you?"

"Uh." It seemed obvious, but Percy couldn't seem to put it into words, which was clearly what Raine wanted him to do. He scuffed the ground, frustrated, and the longest silence yet passed by before he finally managed it. "I don't like feeling weak, or less than or whatever. And I'm not that dumb."

"So having your intelligence insulted makes you feel inferior," Raine concluded. Percy nodded, feeling his throat tighten and his eyes burn. "Do your friends know that?"

"No," Percy mumbled. "I know they don't mean it like that. They're just having fun."

"Percy, how would you feel if one of your jokes made your friend feel bad about themselves?" Raine asked. "Would you want to keep telling it, or would you want to stop?"

"I'd stop," Percy admitted. "And Thalia figured it out as soon as I mentioned Gabe liked to make me show off how dumb I was. She was the one who asked if they needed to stop making those jokes."

"That was kind of her, and I'm sure she meant it," Raine said. "Can you tell me about what Gabe did to belittle you?" Percy flinched, and Raine's voice softened. "I want to help you, Percy. Part of that means understanding how you were hurt. I promise, nothing you tell me will ever reach anyone else."

Percy swallowed and nodded. "He, uh... He used to really like calling me over when his friends were around, and he'd make me bring schoolwork. And he'd ask me the questions off it just so that I'd answer them wrong in front of everyone, and they could laugh at me."

He swallowed again.

"It's so stupid," he said, before he could stop himself. "I've gone through like, actually bad things at this point. I've almost died a hundred times, I've watched friends die, I've walked through the goddamn Fields of Punishment multiple times. Why am I so upset about this?"

It was a rhetorical question, more a vent for his frustration than anything, but Raine answered him anyway.

"You were a child," she said, "still learning how to love and trust the people around you. Please understand, the reason that children are so emotionally vulnerable, the reason childhood trauma affects us for so long, is that your brain is developing at that age. You are, in essence, learning how to think. The things that happen to you then are written into the fabric of your personality."

"I don't want that fucker in my fabric," Percy muttered, startling a cut-off laugh out of Raine.

"Now, I need to ask you a painful question," Raine warned. Percy winced and braced himself, and Raine continued, "How did you feel when he did that?"

Percy clenched his jaw, and it was almost a minute before he calmed enough to answer. "I was embarrassed, obviously," he muttered, looking away over the grass and toward the creek. "And... angry, I guess."

"Angry at who?"

"At that asshole," Percy snapped, hesitated, and then, quieter, "And... I guess I was mad at myself, too, for being so stupid."

"Do you think you can forgive yourself for that?" Raine asked. Percy glanced at her.

"...I don't get it," he admitted cautiously.

"You were never unintelligent, Percy," Raine reminded him. "You were disabled and poorly accommodated, but you were not stupid. Knowing that, can you forgive yourself for not having the answers that would have saved you from that embarrassment?"

Percy blinked at her, vaguely dumbfounded. It made so much sense that he couldn't believe he hadn't thought of it himself, and at the same time it was so bizarrely simple that he couldn't bring himself to believe it was that easy.

"Yeah," he said at last. His voice was rough, and he cleared his throat. "I guess." He cleared his throat again, and then, at a thought, snorted. "Come to think of it- man. How dumb do you have to be to get your jollies proving you're smarter than an eight year old?"

Raine chuckled. "That's the spirit."